


Mise En Abyme

by sevsgirl72



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:36:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7245148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevsgirl72/pseuds/sevsgirl72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck doesn’t know where the intersect starts and he stops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mise En Abyme

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the outstanding and one-of-a-kind Siggen1 as beta, sounding board, and friend.

_Mise en abyme_.

Chuck recalled the term from his single required literature class at Stanford. Placed into the abyss. He could still hear his professor drone on about the definition. It meant little to him then, just one more term on an exam he had to memorize, but now, he was living it.

This was the abyss.  
  
Chuck was standing at the window of his room, the Morgan door, looking across the courtyard considering the door of his handler. Chuck knew that beyond the heavy oak door the Major was watching him.

This was its effect: infinite replication.

Standing between two mirrors, an image reflecting on an image, in an image and so on. It was difficult, or impossible, to see where reality stopped and the reflection began. Ever since the intersect happened Chuck had no idea what was real anymore. Chuck watching Casey watching Chuck—his mind whirled in circles.

Life had become a funhouse of mirrors.

Chuck wondered what Casey thought he was watching out the window; Chuck wondered if he knew what he was watching. Except, he wasn’t actually watching Casey, he was watching a door. A door that hid a space beyond in which anything could be happening. Maybe Casey wasn’t watching.

No.

He knew the Major. Knew how seriously he took his assignment. He was watching, that Chuck was sure of. He even believe for a moment that he could feel Casey’s eyes on him; those hard blue eyes. Chuck didn’t know how long he was standing there when the door opened a crack and he could just barely see the major’s steely, annoyed glare.

The infinite image was realized, and something moved in Chuck’s brain that ripped him out of the abyss and into a flash.

_Abu Dhabi._

_John Casey in Marine greens._

_An extravagant hotel courtyard; Casey in black tie._

_A classified FBI document all blacked out but for ‘John Casey’ and ‘Compromised’._

_A bloodied and dusty John Casey crawling through the desert._

_John Casey kissing a man while holding a gun to his head._

_An Iraqi desert._

The flash ended and Chuck came to, in a state of shock.

“Bartowski!” Casey stalked through the courtyard. Chuck could see the roll of muscles under his t-shirt, the intense focus of his gaze; it was mesmerizing, primal and terrifying. Chuck couldn’t quite figure out what he’d just seen.

“What are you staring at, Bartowski?”

“Me...wha...n-nothing.” Chuck started to panic.

Casey’s eyes narrowed, searching the man’s face.

“Did you just flash?”

Chuck began to back away from the window, but Casey followed, folding himself over the sill without breaking his focus on Chuck’s face.

“Tell me.” It was an order, not a question. Chuck hit the far wall and Casey didn’t stop until they were almost nose to nose. Chuck found the words impossible to form.

“Bartowski.” Casey growled.

“You. I saw you.”

“I’ll call the General, and Walker for a briefing.” Casey turned to leave but Chuck leaped in front of him.

“No! No no...I-I just...it wasn’t that kind of flash.”

“I saw you...in a suit...with a...” Chuck mumbled the rest.

“Say again, Bartowski.”

“Isawyoukissingaman.”

“And?”

“And? What do you mean, and? Is that something that happens often?” Chuck asked with some hesitance. He just couldn’t understand the NSA agent’s nonchalants about the kiss, and even more surprising, the fact that Chuck now about it.

Casey grunted dismissively, before leaving the same way he’d entered quickly disappearing from view.

“And,” Casey’s reappeared quickly, causing Chuck to jump knocking books of his desk. “Stop staring at my door, Bartowski.”

The agent disappeared once more and Chuck moved slowly back to the window when he heard Casey’s door slam. He restarted the infinite cycle of watching, except something told him Casey wasn’t watching back. He was no longer dropped into the abyss, he was just Chuck, standing in his room staring out the window at a door.

In the silence of the apartment, no longer being observed, Chuck was alone, whole and singular yet, longing for the knowledge that someone, that Casey, was watching again.

It was the only way he knew he was real. 


End file.
